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8 Apples

Before I proceed I wanted to compare media sided by side to see what I liked better. Not only how it looks but how I liked working with it.

The Top two are the most popular Hard Pastels Cont’e Crayons and NuPastel. The NuPastel’s Red was more pinkish and the darks aren’t as dark. The Cont’e is more brilliant, less waxy. The Carbothello Pastel Pencils was the most brilliant, which surprised me because it’s the hardest, harder pastels contain more binders. Pencils are much easier to use too, sticks don’t always land on the paper where you expect. The Semi-hard would make a nice underpainting for soft pastel.

Out of the two soft pastels I have, Mungyo and Rembrandt are very similar, I would like to try Sennelier’s soft. Of the Oil pastels, NeoPastel and Mungyo Gallery, the Neo’s are slightly more brilliant, if one pushes hard the Mungyo’s are more likely to leave crumbs on the paper.

Conclusion: For illustration I’m leaning toward Carbothello’s for the precision of the pencil and intensity of the color, if I used any of the other pastels I would have to make the illustrations bigger. I like the Cont’e crayon for life sketching and drawing, because it’s broad but still precise with the square stick. Between the soft pastel and oil pastel, I like the looks of the oil pastel, to me a bit bolder and I like making marks with it.

Thanks for commenting, I like to play and experiment with media almost as much as I like to make art! To see the apple sketches in person the differences are much clearer than the scan. I am leaning more toward liking oil pastels now, except for life drawing, I like hard pastel. I just don’t care for all the dust of soft pastel, and I like the more solid painterly look of oil pastels can have.
I have learned a great deal from your website, I have referred to it again and again, thanks!